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welcome to my blog that contains little bits of what goes on in my world. I am mama to Fay and Lily, wife to Ian and a crafter. I love my life even with the bipolar, adhd and the new countries we move to - currently Barcelona, Spain. Click to email me

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Monday, February 24, 2014

I have been scared and neglectful of this blog to be honest. To get started again with regular posts, when I haven't scrapbooked in months and months, made me feel very wary of what value I could share with anyone or even if people cared to know about what I have been doing. So I was not really sure what to do with this blog, where it was going and where I was going creatively.

but several recent conversations with people made me realise this is my space and I am not "just" a scrapbooker and that some people would love to see what is going on regardless. so I am back to try again, to see if i can pick this up and figure it all out again but I am making no promises and I have no expectations as that only leads to a mental health breakdown.

for those wanting more regular connection, I am on facebook and these are where else you can find me... honestly the same stuff is on most of them so take your pick...

Friday, August 02, 2013

very simple - i cut out basic butterfly shapes to match the sise of the stamped ones, stuck them down temporarily and then mist sprayed over them. I let it dry and then stamped and used emossing powder for make gold butterflies using the butterflys from 'Butterfly Queen' . Added some ribbon and some buttons for a focal point.

I stamped out the butterflies and coloured them in and then glazed them with Ranger Crackle Glaze to make a more deminsional effect. Is tamped the Aloha from the 'hula girl' set on a tag and coloured that with Tim holtz distress inks. the red/pink cardstock I embossed and punched the edge. added some sequins for sparkle :)

Stamped a bunch of butterflies and embossed them - I then stamped and coloured Rose and added stickles to give some sparkle to her rose and scarf (i know my hair colouring is not great). I added two halfs of the love and luck banners along with some scalloped edges and some red pleated ribbon.

Monday, July 29, 2013

During the past few weeks, I've been experimenting and learning how to make bracelets from satin cord to Para-cord, to Shambhala aka Macrame style to Fishtail friendships ones and I fell in love with Kumihimo braiding and the Macrame style techniques.

There are so many bead shops here in barcelona that the supplies are
easy and cheap to get hold of and I need something simple and repetitive
to help calm me so its been fun..

It started out as making something to wear for Barcelona Pride and kinda grew from there. That is mine of the left and the black one is the beads "offical" shamballa bracelets use - made from hematite - it weights a lot.

The silver beads weight nothing and came from a broken junk shop find. The hug token was a gift when I left Canada and the blue beads are plastic and the girls like playing dress up with them.

Its been fun trying out different types of materials from offical beading cord to rubber and leather to see how they work.

I did though decides I am not a fan of major beading ie seed beads etc so wont be making a lot with those again.

I suppose it my way of making up for the fact I cannot crochet to save my life - the far right is Ian's, the middle is Fay's bookmark and the left is one for a usa-based friend.

and some of the experimental pieces ended up as decent keychain attachments :)

Really not got my own tutorial to share with you as there are some awesome ones out there on youtube and on several websites so I am going to list the ones I used.

I have some plans to try other styles - like this Beaded wrapped one, This boxed Braid by Sketch42 and make a proper paracord survival version and some monkeyball fists aka chinese or celtic knotballs.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

When I get stuck for ideas, espeically when my creative muse is grumpy, i always turn back to my favourite Bombshell Stamps - beautiful red rubber images that make my heart happy that can also put up with a lot of abuse. I stamp out a bunch on cardstock and sit and colour and see where it goes.

First up today is "Forever" . I used the Tattoo Font for the background - handcoloured in the red to match the "speed shop" hotrod; which I coloured and then glazed with Ranger Glossy Accents. The 'forever' is from the wonderful words Papertrey Die. I crimped some black cardstock to add some extra texture detail.

Personally, I think it would make an awesome rockabilly Wedding Card :)

Next up today is "Thank You"

I used the 'PinStripes' for the background - Spray Misted in blues to match the "speed shop" classic; which I coloured and then glazed with Ranger Glossy Accents. The 'you' is from the wonderful words Papertrey Die and the 'thank' is from an old 'thankful diecut. The Fabric Buttons are diy ones with basic cotton material on top - i stamped the images (from the Speed Shop set) on the cotton with stazon inks, then cut them out and made them with the button-press-maker. I sprayed them with the inks once made to add a little more interest to the card - technically they could be made into fridgemagnets if you wanted.

Last up today is "Kiss".

I wanted to take the masculine 'PinStripes' and make somethign feminine with them. So is tamped out a bunch of the images, cut them out and folded them up to make the outer flower. It hen took on of the smaller stamps and overlapped them in a circle to make the center peice. The two swallows are from my all-time favourite "love and luck" set... did you know swallows mate for life ? makes it a good engagement or wedding card symbol... The swallows are dusted with silver glitter. The whole thing is mounted on a piece of left over marbled paper I had from this technique and measured 6x6"... making the bottom layer of 'petal' leaves stick was a test of patience and good glue!

So those are my cards for today, will be back to share more next sunday or during the week if its part of a techique post. Hope you liked them.

Ps - big thanks to Danielle Flanders - she is an amazingly talented creative artist and a lovely person to know - she very kindly sent me all the diecut words as a gift last year and I am running out so have to find a way to buy the Papertrey Ink dies for myself - maybe a birthday present I think... (hint hint Ian)

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

I am taking part in the awesome Summerlong art journal course at Rhomany's Realm where I shared some artwork and videos from Barcelona. It is filled with some cool artists and students and its been fun to create for fun again.

as part of that all the students mail each other some interesting bits fromt heir city and do some art of the envelope - known as Mail Art... Here are some of mine...

a whole mix of Bombshell Stamps and sodaLicios stamps and old My Minds Eye stamps...

and some smaller regular envelopes

I am glad they made the recipients smile and hopefully made the postpeople smile too.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Crepe Paper is super cheap - normally about a $1 per roll and from that you could make 100's of flowers or miles or ruffle streamers!

I have used crepe before to make flowers - at the time i used Melissa Frances's scrapbook specific ones - those layouts are *here*.

You can make flowers by hand with a regular needle and thread but I was playing with crepe for making ruffles for another project with my sewing machine and thought it would be fun to make some flowers aswell.

I make the ruffles by sewing on the biggest stitch and then gentle holding the Threed reel so it tightens up and as crepe is cheap, you can practice to get comfortable with your technique.

so I went with regular ruffles, layered ruffles, folded over and some varietion on all.. and then i edge punched and made some flowers with that :)

I adore these swirl ones - you sew it on a diagnonal and then cut it on the line to ensure it spirals easily when you stick it down.

So there you go, some easy flowers for your scrapbook layouts and cards from a cheap and colourful resource.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Having realised that I have a billion or so projects bookmarked in my Pinterest and Craftsters folders, I have decided that every Monday I will upload a project I have made inspired by something that caught my eye.

This week's one has been about for a long time but it ended up as a crunch project that exploded as Fay needed something girlie for a birthday party.

so today's project is: Organza Flower Clips!

Supplies - you need some Organza or Voile, a candle and a scissors - along with some hair clips and some sew or hot glue gun and soem odd bits of felt (for the backing).

you can buy packes of assorted organza in bazzara for a few pounds - these normally have a high plastic contents and I have found that they tend to burn very quickly and they got brown/grey rather than black or slightly melted. you can normally buy a 1/4 yard of organza in a fabric shop for a few pounds and that amount would be enough to do at least 4 if not 6 flowers.

You need to cut circles from the fabric in a varity of sizes - i would not go really any smaller than 1 1/2" across as you'll end up with burmt fingers and it over heating to quickly. I often do way more than is needed - using the rule of thumb of 1 crap circle per flower.

When you have the circles cut out, then you need to get your candle sorted out - I do this part near my sink so any bit thst catch on fire just get thrown in there - other people use a bowl of water near them on a table. The Organza will melt and is flammable and so it will stick to things - including your fingers and may continue to burn unless doussed in water.

you want a small to medium flame in a controlled environment - inside a glass or a holder so that the flame does not move about too much. I leave about an inche or two from the flame to the area i want to move the fabric through. This part of the project is a fast moving one so its best to have everything to hand.

you are not putting the fabric into the actual flame, you are moving the fabric through the heated air around the flame - that will be enought to melt the edges and make it curl up.

I hold the circles betweenmy hands and rotate it quickly but steadyily through the hot air so the edges melt - this will take a little bit of practice so hang on to your scraps to practice.

You should end up with a bunch of circles like this:

You then need to assemble the flowers to suit yourself, I stitched throught the middle and then added buttons and corsage jewels to the middle.

I then cut out a little bit of felt and hot glued it and the hair clip to the reverse of the flower. you could sew it to it but hotglue is easier. The felt has the added advantage of making the flower "grippier" in the hair so less likely to slide out.

You are only limited by your imagaination and supply of hairclips :)

and my rainbow flower for pride week. I made some extra ones with the felt I had too.

yeah - loads of forums for everything - i think there is something like 67,000 sub reddits!!! so you bound to find like minded people if you want ... word to the wise - some forums will make your blood curdle.

technically just an image hosting site - normally used by reddit peeps but it can be a host of the feels if you catch it at the right time.